Sacred Heart Parish, New
Britain, CT.
My wife and I visited New Britain CT. in the late 90’s. I read a book
a couple years before by Daniel
Buczek - Immigrant
pastor:The life of the Right Reverend Monsignor Lucyan Bojnowski
of New Britain, Connecticut and I wanted to see a what this pastor
had accomplished. As we walked the school grounds of Sacred Heart we came upon Sr.
Alma Sakowicz, Dir. Of Religious Education at Sacred Heart School,
who gave us a tour of Sacred Heart
church, both the lower and upper levels. We visited the cemetery that
overlooks the city as well as the orphanage and convent.
The Staropolska
restaurant was our final stop for lunch before we left for home.
It has been my goal since I retired to learn as much as I
could about America’s Polonia and thanks to the Internet I have been able do my
research and share it with you. This is just one small contribution of mine to
Polonia. The one that I am most proud of is the history of my Polish Parish, St. Joseph’s of Camden, NJ.
The Sacred Heart church is the
oldest Polish American parish in New England, established in 1894.
It was an ethnic parish lead by a very powerful Monsignor Lucyan Bojnowski who
was a very influential figure not only with parishioners’ lives but influenced the
entire town.
In 1895 Monsignor Bojinowski felt the need to care
for children who were orphaned in an epidemic and founded the Daughters of Mary
of the Immaculate Conception to care for them in an orphanage built in
1904. The Motherhouse of this order continued to grow in 1937 and then
again from 1945 to 1961, making room for a high school for girls. It grew
again in 1962 as the order’s numbers increased. Over the years, though,
the number of Sisters decreased and the large facility was no longer fully
used. In 2001, the nuns decided to look for ways that the facility could
live out their mission and benefit the community. Sister Mary Mark led
the effort to investigate various uses for it. After consulting with the
secular and religious community, the nuns determined that the community’s most
pressing needs were low-cost housing and child day care. The idea of
Marian Heights was born.
When they cut the
ribbon on the new Marian Heights Senior Housing
and Day Care center on October 15, 2010 it was a culmination of a dream over 10
years in the making for the Daughters of Mary of the Immaculate Conception
(DMIC). They officially saw their
1937 convent reborn as a low-income senior housing and day-care facility
because of their selfless devotion to the community.
The “Immigrant
Pastor’s” many accomplishments can be summed up with the following words taken
from an article in the local paper
“The Hartford skyline stands at the edge of the view from the sister's
sitting room on the fourth floor of St. Lucian's Home for the Aged. Closer to
home on Osgood Hill, the sisters can see the imposing structure of the former
Polish orphanage, the grounds of the Polish cemetery, the Monsignor Bojnowski
Manor nursing home and, in the winter when the foliage is sparse, the
motherhouse (Marian Heights)of the Congregation of the Daughters of Mary of the
Immaculate Conception.”
``Our founder had a vision,'' said Sister Mary Gloriosa, one of the three
Daughters of Mary who live and work at St. Lucian's. ``He certainly had a
vision.''
Between
1865 - 1920, immigration trends shifted from Western Europe (Great Britain,
Germany, Netherlands) to Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Poland, the Balkan
states). This trend alarmed the mainly Protestant “old immigrants,” who felt
threatened by the mainly Catholic “new immigrants.” Nativist
organizations successfully pressured the United States government to
enact laws to curb what they saw as a
demoralizing and worsening situation for the country. Such efforts culminated
in the passage of the National Origins
Act in 1924.
Due
to the passage of the act today's Polonia is not the
same as that of our grandparents who came to New Britain seeking a better life
over a century ago. The ties, which bound the traditional old neighborhood
together, have somewhat unraveled, but the community has adapted and changed.
We are strong. We will survive.